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ARTS, BRIEFLY; Bradley Cooper Heading Way, Way Down Under

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Published: July 21, 2011

Having returned from a humid if lucrative trip to Bangkok (to shoot the smash summer comedy ''The Hangover Part II'') with all of his digits intact, Bradley Cooper is headed to another sweltering location for his next movie - and we don't mean Australia.

Mr. Cooper will portray Lucifer, the fallen angel turned ruler of Hell, in a film version of Milton's ''Paradise Lost,'' The Associated Press reported. The original epic, you surely recall, told the story ''of man's first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree'' that was used by Satan to tempt Adam and Eve away from God, and famously sought to ''justify the ways of God to men.'' While the blind Milton had to dictate his poem to secretaries, the ways of the film industry are a little different: Australian government officials announced on Wednesday that the special-effects-heavy ''Paradise Lost'' movie would be directed by Alex Proyas, the director of big-budget action features including ''I, Robot'' and ''Knowing,'' and would be filmed largely at the Fox Studios in Sydney, with some financial incentives from the government of New South Wales.

''Had we not done this it would have been opportunity lost, not 'Paradise Lost,''' said Andrew Stoner, the acting premier of New South Wales, in a not particularly Miltonian turn of phrase. Casting for Adam and Eve wasn't immediately announced, but one assumes that costumes won't be a problem.

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.